


steal it urgent, all for now (don't look back and don't look down)

by Froggimus_Rex



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: F/M, First Time, Grooming, Hair Brushing, Haircuts, Post-Nathema Conspiracy, petty revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 11:24:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16973706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Froggimus_Rex/pseuds/Froggimus_Rex
Summary: "Awkward is not the word I'd use for keeling over in the middle of the flightbay because you decided that 'stabilised' was synonymous with 'healed'.""Yeah, but you were giving that whole speech and I had to upstage you somehow."After Nathema, Theron and Lana talk....for certain definitions of 'talk'.





	steal it urgent, all for now (don't look back and don't look down)

**Author's Note:**

> So I meant to get this done before 5.10 dropped, and, well...it still counts if I haven't played it yet?
> 
> Title from _Skin_ by Naked Raven

Lana awoke to the sound of someone at her door. Though 'awoke' implied that she'd actually been asleep at some point during the night, instead of closing her eyes and hoping for some semblance of rest. Meditation had been equally elusive, neither casting her Force sense wide across Odessen base nor drawing it in so tightly she may as well have been Force blind had had any effect. Now, in response to the door chime, she extended a tendril of awareness outwards, just as far as the door, hoping it was either a visitor trivial enough to ignore, or summons urgent enough to abandon this whole useless endeavour entirely. 

It was neither.

As she padded to the door, she called her discarded outer tunic to her hand, yanking it over her head. On its own it left her arms barer and her neckline deeper than she'd choose to wear in public, but it fell far enough down her thighs to avoid offending the delicate sensibilities of any passers by.

"Theron." Another time she might have asked why he was at her door in the middle of the night, (Another time she would've just opened the door from her bed and waited to hear if she needed to be vertical for the conversation.) but she felt her tone implied it well enough.

"Uh, Lana, hey." Leaning against her doorway with a casualness that couldn't even hope for feigned, Theron ran his hand through that ridiculous haircut. "I was just..."

"Escaping from the medbay again?" The question came out sharper than she'd intended, but the loose, wine-dark scrubs only highlighted how drawn and ashen his features were, and she'd hauled him into enough kolto tanks for the rest of both their lives, thank you.

Theron had enough grace to wince. "No, no, got the all clear this time. Didn't want a repeat of that awkwardness."

"Awkward is not the word I'd use for keeling over in the middle of the flightbay because you decided that 'stabilised' was synonymous with 'healed'." Try terrifying.

"Yeah, but you were giving that whole speech and I had to upstage you somehow."

Lana _knew_ that this was what he did, reflexively deflect and defuse with terrible jokes, however "Theron, you're not helping!"

The not-particularly-artful lean turned into sagging as Theron stopped trying to cover the fact he was supporting himself against her doorframe. "I know. I just needed a change of clothes and your rooms are closer than mine." This was a blatant lie, one advantage of carving a base out of bedrock from scratch was that they'd been able to place their living quarters equidistant from important facilities, but Lana wouldn't have wanted to go to Theron's rooms right now either. "I mean, assuming you haven't set fire to all my spares or anything."

"No, they're still here." Lana wasn't sure why that had the taste of falsehood on her tongue. "Come on in, then."

Theron sagged even further, all but broadcasting his relief, and Lana suspected the only reason he wasn't was force of habit at guarding his thoughts. "Can I use your 'fresher first? Everything still tastes of kolto."

The small and petty part of Lana that thought he deserved that was easily repressed, and she waved him in. Sleep appeared further off than ever, so she started collecting and sorting through the datapads scattered over her bed, keeping in an ear out case there came another sickly thud over the sound of water cycling through the refresher cubicle.

"Lana." Her head shot up at Theron's strained tone, and she stared. Not at the round, fist-sized patch of new skin in the centre of his chest, shiny and pale, or even at how that haircut looked even worse damp. No, what had drawn her eye was what Theron was holding. It looked like one of the (identical) pairs of trousers that had migrated over to her rooms when late night strategy sessions had inevitably turned to early (or mid) morning ones, but she was fairly certain they had not been that eye-searing pattern of garish yellow criss-crossed with dull, dirty brown when Theron had left them here.

"Oh," she said, faintly. "I thought I'd hallucinated that."

"I wish I was hallucinating these" Theron held the abomination against both fashion and eyesight at arm's length like it was personally offending him. Which they probably were.

"So they're all like that?" Lana had a very bad feeling she already knew the answer, but it was still worth checking.

It wasn't like Lana didn't know Theron was capable of making that expression, she just preferred it wasn't directed at her. "All of them. Including my boots. I didn't even know you could do that to boots."

Neither had Lana. Apparently she'd been very determined.

"Lana, why?"

There were a wealth of questions implied there. Lana chose to ignore most of them at this moment, loathe to admit she'd learnt the hard way the difference between lofty, impassioned proclamations, and the reality of what the human body was capable of, even augmented by caf and the Force, and as a result had a full day she couldn't account for. Though it seemed she'd been indulging her artistic side. "I believe I was upset with you. Can't imagine why."

“You certainly picked a way to show it..” Theron was glaring at his trousers like it would return them to their former state. “I can't wear these, I’ll look ridiculous.”

Lana rather suspected that had been the point. Not that she cared to examine her motives too closely (where had she even gotten the dye?). “If you cared about looking ridiculous you wouldn't have done that to your hair.”

"Oh, you're going to go there are you?" Theron lowered the trousers so he could glare at her instead. "I was undercover."

"And you somehow thought that look screamed subtle and inconspicuous."

"Yes! No! Are you really going to focus on my hair of all things?"

"Which of your other, brilliant, decisions would you prefer I focus on instead?" Lana wasn't sure why she was baiting him like this. "This one at least I can fix if you'd bother asking for help."

Theron put his hands on his hips, the effect rather ruined by the fact he was only wearing , and was still holding his sabotaged trousers in one hand. "Why don't you then? ...hey!"

Lana probably (definitely) could have grabbed what remained of Theron's hair more gently, or not at all, but they'd passed the point of making sensible decisions some time ago. She planted her free hand between his shoulders and shoved him towards the bed. "Sit."

"Oh, I'm the one with issues about asking for things?" Theron perched himself on the very edge of her bed, the very picture of wounded dignity. "Looked in the mirror lately?"

Lana heroically refrained from rolling her eyes as she rearranged her pillows so she could sit up against the headboard, legs stretched out in front of her. "For pity's sake, Theron, this will take a while, make yourself comfortable." She patted her lap to emphasise her point. 

Theron visibly bit back on whatever he wanted to say, which Lana was grateful for, instead he gingerly shifted until he was resting in her lap, shoulders on her thighs, back of his head against her belly. Not that resting was really the right word for it, either, his whole body was stiff, she could feel the tension radiating from his muscles at every point of contact between them. Still, it seemed a spectacularly bad idea (as opposed to merely somewhat ill-conceived) to draw attention to this, so she let it lie and started running her fingers through his hair.

At first she just teased out the knots and tangles, combing out what was left of his hair into a vaguely familiar style. Even without using the Force, the slow, repetitive movements had a vaguely hypnotic quality to them, and gradually Theron started to relax, his weight settling against her as the tension leeched from his body. It was then that she started drawing on the Force, siphoning energy from the brilliant, chaotic torrent that was Odessen and letting it trickle out of her fingertips, to soak into Theron's skin wherever her own made contact with his.It was slow, delicate work, coaxing out new growth without burdening already overtaxed bodies, but inexorably, the skin under Lana's fingers became stubble, then soft bristles, and finally thick, dark hair. 

She could've stopped there, Theron's hair was borderline acceptable, there was no real purpose now to the way her fingers kept carding through it, and even his colour was better, and she did ease off, just letting that tricking current of energy flowing between them pool and spread where it willed instead of directing it, but she was relaxed and comfortable and even content in a way she hadn't been in far too long, and selfishly wanted to keep that just a bit longer.

"Nice trick," Theron said eventually, his hand tracing idle patterns on her leg. "Master Zho used to do something similar when I was sick as a kid. You know, the kind of sick where you're miserable but all a medic'll do is give you something for the symptoms and tell you to wait it out. Always figured that'd be how it was going to feel all the time when the Force clicked for me."

Lana recognised the peace offering for what it was, Theron rarely volunteered information about his childhood, not with such wistfulness. "An older acolyte taught me on Korriban," she answered the unasked question. "For dealing with sunburn."

Theron grinned up at her as he put it together. "Oh, yeah, I can see how that happened." He caught her free hand in his, fingers entwining. "Will I hear embarrassing stories about you as a baby Sith if I hunt them down?"

"No.She's dead now." Far too many of her friends were.

The grin vanished. "Sorry." And she doubted it was just for some Sith he'd never met. He focused on their joined hand as if it'd unlock the mysteries of the universe. "I never meant...a lot of things, really," he said and kissed the back of her knuckles.

It was nothing, really. A brief, absent, apologetic press of skin on skin. Easily dismissed and forgotten, but Lana's hand faltered on his scalp as her general sense of Theron's closeness and their state of undress sparked into an actual, full-blown awareness like it hadn't in years. Since before Rishi, even.

Theron looked up at her with an unreadable expression, then slowly, deliberately, disentangled their fingers and pressed a kiss to her palm. Lana wasn't sure whether it was meant as a challenge or an invitation, but quite honestly, she didn't care, not that it even mattered, as Theron didn't actually wait for a response before he was pushing off the bed, turning to meet her.

It was hardly the most elegant embrace Lana had been involved in, Theron was twisted so awkwardly about that she couldn't tell whether it was his elbow or erection that was pressing against her leg, but he was kissing her with an almost feverish intensity and there was absolutely nothing gentle about the way her fingers were entwined in his hair. She only,  
reluctantly, broke off when she felt his hands smoothing along her thigh. "This isn't going to work." A crestfallen expression that should not have been anywhere near as satisfying as it was crossed his face before she clarified "This position. We need to swap."

"Oh, right. Of course you'd want to be on top, you're bossy like that." Lana might have been annoyed at the stream of colour commentary if he hadn't also promptly moved to do exactly what she suggested, obligingly lifting his hips when she went to yank off those scrub pants. If that crestfallen expression that been unexpectedly pleasing, then it was downright gratifying the way Theron's words cut off when she pulled her tunic off over her head and tossed it aside and he tried to tug her into his lap. She went easily, straddling his hips, one hand wrapped around his cock to guide it as she lowered herself onto him.

In contrast to the frantic, fervent way their hands and mouths moved over skin, his lips tracing a line down her neck to her breasts, her nails digging into his shoulders, their lovemaking was slow, Theron's hips rocking gently upwards to meet the downwards press of her own. Slower than Lana might have preferred, actually, but even if Theron's skin had lost that ashen hue, he still had dark shadows under his eyes, and Lana wasn't enough of an egoist to attribute the faint trembling of his fingers to her efforts, and much as she might have like to push him back against the mattress and ride him for all she was worth (she sincerely doubted Theron would've objected), right now 'all she was worth' wasn't a lot.

In all, it wasn't that much of a surprise when all too soon Theron was clutching to her as the rhythm of his hips faltered, jerking and shuddering to a halt. Pressing his face against her shoulder, he mumbled apologies to the crook of her neck, slid his hand down to where their bodies were still joined. His fingers were shaky but sure, alternatively tracing and stroking her clit to coax out her release even as his cock softened inside her. 

Eventually, she pushed his hand away, because that was quite sufficient, thank you, Theron, and he slumped back with what Lana felt was an inordinately pleased expression for someone who currently had the staying power of a trigger happy teenager. She would've said as much, but what came out was a jaw-cracking yawn instead. 

"Never had that reaction before." Theron was actually pouting. It was quite frankly adorable as far as Lana was concerned. "You sure know how to build up a guy's confidence, Beniko."

Lana ignored his words in favour of kissing that pout and making herself comfortable on top of him, a post-orgasmic lassitude creeping through her limbs. "I'm sure you'll last longer next time."

"Already sure there's going to be a next time?" Theron's hands were a warm weight on her back, tracing down her spine. She lay her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat.

"Yes." If he was going to call her bossy, it was only fair she got to boss him around. "No arguments."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

Lana slept.


End file.
